Philosophy of Computer Science: Online Resources

Further Readings for Chapter 2:

Philosophy: A Personal View

Note 1: Many of these items are online; links are given where they are known. Other items may also be online; an internet search should help you find them.

Note 2: In general, works are listed in chronological order. (This makes it easier to follow the historical development of ideas.)

§2.1: Introduction

• Note on Quotation Marks and the Use-Mention Distinction:

  Besides the somewhat hackneyed Paris-'Paris' example that I give in the book, here are two cartoons that illustrate the use-mention distinction.

  (Exercise for the reader: Which one correctly uses quotation marks, and which word needs them?)

  

  

§2.2: A Definition of 'Philosophy'

• Standard reference works in philosophy:

  Three older encyclopedias are:

  • Edwards, P., editor (1967). Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Macmillan, New York.

  • Fieser, J., & Dowden, B., editors (1995). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy [online]

  • Craig, E., editor (1998). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Routledge, London.

  But the most respected and most widely cited encyclopedia is online and continually updated:

  • Zalta, E.N., editor. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (The Metaphysics Research Lab, Philosophy Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA)

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• Introductions to Philosophy:
  1. My favorite introduction to philosophy is:
     • Nagel, T. (1987). What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy. Oxford University Press, New York.

  2. My second favorite is:
     • Russell, B. (1912). The Problems of Philosophy. Oxford University Press (1959), London.

  3. And another good introduction, especially relevant to the philosophy of computer science, is:
     • Chalmers, David J. (2022), Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy (New York: W.W. Norton).

     which discusses the major problems of philosophy as applied to issues concerning the nature of virtual reality and simulation.
     

  4. On philosophical method, see:
     • Williamson, T. (2020). Philosophical Method: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

  ---

• On the nature of philosophy:
  • A good, brief, online introduction to philosophy is:
    • Audi, R. (1981). Philosophy: A Brief Guide for Undergraduates. American Philosophical Assocation, Newark, DE.

  • Plato's Apology (various versions are online)
    • Explains what Socrates thought that philosophy was all about; it's a good introduction to the skeptical, questioning nature of philosophy.

  • On the relation of AI to philosophy, I recommend Chapters 3 and 4 of Colburn 2000.

  • On different styles of philosophy, see the University of Michigan Department of Philosophy's website and commentary on it at Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

  • On philosophy in the public sphere, see:
    • Kitcher, P. (2011). Philosophy inside out. Metaphilosophy, 42(3):248–260.

• For more on correspondence theories, see:
  • David, Marian, The Correspondence Theory of Truth, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

  • McGinn, C. (2015). Philosophy of Language: The Classics Explained. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 148–149.

  The standard logical analysis of a correspondence theory of truth is due to Alfred Tarski. For an overview, see

  • Hodges, Wilfrid, Tarski's Truth Definitions, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

  Tarski's own version aimed at a general audience is:

  • Tarski, A. (1969, June). Truth and proof. Scientific American, pages 63–70, 75–77.

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• On coherence theories, see:
  • Young, James O., The Coherence Theory of Truth, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

  • McGinn 2015, p. 148.

• Rapaport, W. J. (1982). Unsolvable problems and philosophical progress. American Philosophical Quarterly, 19:289–298.

• Rapaport, W. J. (1984). Can philosophy solve its own problems? The [SUNY] News, 13:F2–F3.

• Moody, T. C. (1986). Progress in philosophy. American Philosophical Quarterly, 23(1):35–46.

• Chalmers, D. J. (2015). Why isn’t there more progress in philosophy? Philosophy, 90(1):3–31.

• Frances, B. (2017). Extensive philosophical agreement and progress. Metaphilosophy, 48(1–2):47–57.

• Shand, John (2017), "Philosophy Makes No Progress, So What Is the Point of It?", Metaphilosophy, 48(3):284–295.
  • Makes an interesting observation relevant to William Perry's scheme of cognitive development (discussed in §2.6 of this book):

    "The value of philosophy … is to give the full array of alternatives [Perry calls this "Multiplicity"] … showing the rational consequences of adopting one view rather than another [Perry calls this "Contextual Relativism"]. … Philosophers are generally … the last people to have a philosophy if that means settling finally on a system of rules to live by … [Perry would call such settling "Dualism"] … ." (p. 292)

• Stoljar, D. (2017). Philosophical Progress: In Defence of a Reasonable Optimism. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

• Dellsén, Finnur; Firing, Tina; Lawler, Insa; & Norton, James (2024), "What Is Philosophical Progress?", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
  "The discipline of philosophy makes progress regarding some phenomenon to the extent that philosophical research puts people in a position to increase their understanding of that phenomenon." (§3.4).
  • See the Further Reading for Ch.20 for a commentary on this.

See also the answers to two questions at AskPhilosophers.org:

• "Have philosophers ever produced anything in the way that scientists have?"

• "How is 'philosophical progress' made, assuming it is made at all?"

§2.4.4: Skepticism:

• "The Greek word for 'thought' is 'skeptis.' It has given us 'skeptical' … in English … to indicate a habitual doubting attitude. That's because the very act of doubt implies thought. Surely you all know that the most efficient way of accepting the foolish dogmas foisted on us by social orthodoxy is to refrain from thinking."
  —Asimov, Isaac (1987), Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain (New York: Doubleday), §47.

• On Deductive Logical Rationality:
  • A good informal overview of the nature of (deductive) logic and its relationship to CS is:
    Williamson, Timothy (2023), "The Patterns of Reality", Aeon (14 November).

• On the experimental philosophy movement ("X-Phi"), see:

  • Appiah, K. A. (2007). The new new philosophy. New York Times Magazine, pages 34–36.

  • Appiah, K. A. (2008). Experimental philosophy. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 82(2):7–22.

  • Nichols, S. (2011). Experimental philosophy and the problem of free will. Science, 331(6023):1401–1403.

  • Roberts, P. and Knobe, J. (2016). Interview on experimental philosophy with Joshua Knobe. Exchanges: The Warwick Research Journal, 4(1):14–28.

  • Beebe, J. R. (2020). Experimental epistemology research group.

• For an argument against experimental philosophy, see:
  • Deutsch, M. (2009). Experimental philosophy and the theory of reference. Mind & Language, 24(4):445–466.

  Whether or not X-Phi is really philosophy, it is certainly an interesting and valuable branch of cognitive science.

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• For a useful discussion of naturalistic philosophy, see:
  • Thagard, P. (2012, 4 December). Eleven dogmas of analytic philosophy. Psychology Today

  And

  • Williamson, T. (2007). The Philosophy of Philosophy. Blackwell, Oxford.

  argues that there's nothing wrong with "armchair" philosophy.

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• For a debate on science vs. philosophy, read:
  • Linker, D. (2014, 6 May). Why Neil deGrasse Tyson is a Philistine. The Week.

  • Powell, L. (2014, 8 May). An open letter to Neil deGrasse Tyson. The Horseless Telegraph.

  • Pigliucci, M. (2014, 12 May). Neil deGrasse Tyson and the value of philosophy. Scientia Salon.

  in that order.

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• For a discussion of whether philosophy or science is "harder", see:
  • Papineau, D. (2017, 1 June). Is philosophy simply harder than science? Times Literary Supplement Online.

• On why science needs philosophy, see:
  • Laplane, L., Mantovani, P., Adolphs, R., Chang, H., Mantovani, A., McFall-Ngai, M., Rovelli, C., Sober, E., and Pradeu, T. (2019, 5 March). Why science needs philosophy. PNAS, 116(10):3948–3952.

• The knowing-how/knowing-that distinction was first discussed in:
  • Ryle, G. (1945). Knowing how and knowing that. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 46:1–16.

  It is examined in the context of computer programs in:

  • Pavese, C. (2015). Practical senses. Philosophers' Imprint, 15(29):1–25.

  For surveys of recent work on the distinction, see:

  • Cath, Y. (2019). Knowing how. Analysis.

  • Pavese, Carlotta, Knowledge How, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

§2.5.4: Is It Always Rational to be Rational?

• An interesting discussion of the role — and limits — of rationality in AI research is:
  • Russell, S. (1995). Rationality and intelligence. Artificial Intelligence, 94:57–77.

• For more on the nature of rationality and its limits, see:
  • Rothman, J. (2021, 23 August). Thinking it through: How much can rationality do for us? The New Yorker, pages 24–29.
    • "Rationality is one of humanity's superpowers. How do we keep from misusing it?" (p. 25)

• For a discussion of rationality vs. emotion, especially in the context of "deep neural networks", see:
  • Buckner, Cameron J. (2024), From Deep Learning to Rational Machines: What the History of Philosophy Can Teach Us about the Future of Artificial Intelligence (New York: Oxford University Press), §2.4

§2.7: Philosophy as a Personal Search

• On the view that everone is entitled to their own opinion, see:
  • Bookbinder, Hilarius (2025, 5 February), "You Don't Have a Right to Your Own Opinion: But that's OK" Scriptorium Philosophia

• Here is a useful characterization of "philosophy of X" (where X = a particular science):
  … there are general topics relating to matters like methodology and explanation (e.g., the status of statistical explanations in psychology and sociology, or the physics-chemistry relation in philosophy of chemistry), and more specific philosophical issues that come up in the special science at issue (simultaneity for philosophy of physics; individuation of species and ecosystems for the philosophy of biology). General topics of the first type … include:
  • What the subject matter is,
  • What the theoretical goals are,
  • What form theories should take, and
  • What counts as data.
  (Scholz, Barbara C.; Francis Jeffry Pelletier; Geoffrey K. Pullum, and Ryan Nefdt, "Philosophy of Linguistics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.).

• For a somewhat extreme, yet illuminating, example of a "philosophy of X", see:
  • Stevenson, Robert Louis (1894), "The Philosophy of Umbrellas"

    (Note: A watermark makes the essay almost unreadable at the above link, but it is easily readable if you print it or check the box on the website to "Generate PDF".)

• On the AI approach to existence and non-existence, see:
  • Hirst, G. (1991). Existence assumptions in knowledge representation. Artificial Intelligence, 49:199–242.

  • Shapiro, Stuart C. and Rapaport, W. J. (1991). Models and minds: Knowledge representation for natural-language competence. In Cummins, R. and Pollock, J., editors, Philosophy and AI: Essays at the Interface, pages 215–259. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

• For the AI version of ontology, see The Buffalo Ontology Site.

• On knowledge representation, see:
  • Brachman, Ronald J., & Levesque, Hector J. (2004), Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann/Elsevier Science)

  • Buchanan, B. G. (2006, Winter). What do we know about knowledge? AI Magazine, pages 35–46.

  • Shoham, Y. (2016). Why knowledge representation matters. Communications of the ACM, 59(1):47–49.

  and my bibliography at Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: General Resources

• Lewis Carroll's essay, "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles" is reprinted, with commentaries by Simon Blackburn, G.F. Schueler, and Timothy Smiley, in Mind 104(416) (October 1995).